


Ragged Wings

by Sermocinare



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Era, Gen, Haunting, Mothman, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-22
Updated: 2014-04-22
Packaged: 2018-01-20 09:52:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1506161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sermocinare/pseuds/Sermocinare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time he sees the creature, Combeferre is barely five years of age</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ragged Wings

The first time he sees the creature, Combeferre is barely five years of age. He shrieks and runs to his parents' bedroom, waking them with tearful babbling of red eyes and torn wings hovering above his newborn sister's crib. His father strokes back his hair, telling him that it was nothing but a bad dream, and that demons aren't real. His mother sighs and slips out of bed to calm down the crying infant. 

Two days later, little Therese dies. 

Combeferre watches as his mother breaks down, curling up on the floor, sobbing and pulling her hair, and he hides behind the cupboard for hours because he doesn't know what to do, and he's so afraid. He listens as she first blames God and then herself, and that's when he comes out of hiding, crouching down besides his mother and touching her shoulder: “It was the demon, maman.” 

His mother looks at him with wide, glazed eyes that are reddened from all the tears. Then she turns away, and her sobbing, which had been calming down, once again rises in volume.

His father grabs his arm and pulls him away.

“Look what you've done! Haven't I told you that demons aren't real?” 

Combeferre shirks away from the pain and anger in his father's voice, nodding before pulling himself out of the harsh grip around his arm. 

He never mentions the demon again, at least not to his parents, but he knows the creature is real.

–

Combeferre sighs and places a woven band between the pages of his book before looking up at Enjolras: “My friend, you have been sitting in your chair smiling to yourself and watching me read for almost a quarter of an hour now. Out with it.” 

Enjolras' smile doesn't falter, and he puts his pen down, turning his full attention towards Combeferre: “I am just wondering what a man such as yourself would find appealing in a book like that.” When Combeferre raises an eyebrow at him, he continues: “You are a man of letters, of reason. Why waste your time with the supernatural? With ghosts, vampires and demons?”

Closing his book, Combeferre puts it down on the table. “I am a student of the human condition, and the supernatural has been part of that condition for as long as civilization has existed.”

This time, it is Enjolras who raises a questioning brow: “But wouldn't you agree that to reach true freedom and enlightenment, man must throw off the shackles of religion and superstition?”

“But isn't enlightenment based on reason?” By now, Combeferre is warming up to the discussion, and he can see by the glint in the other man's eyes that Enjolras is feeling the same. 

“And reason is based on facts, Combeferre. Not superstition or old wives' tales.”

“That is true. But to obtain those facts, one must keep an open mind, or else be blinded by one's own pre-concieved notions of what is real and what is not.” 

Enjolras' smile widens in the way it always does when he believes he has Combeferre cornered. There is no superiority in that smile, no gloating or triumph, but rather a profound enjoyment of intellectual battle: “So present to me your facts.”

“There are dozens, hundreds of written and oral accounts of those who have witnessed these supernatural phenomena, and even though the circumstances may vary, some core details overlap in all accounts in regards to the type of phenomenon they describe.” 

Enjolras gestures as if wiping all of these accounts off the table in front of them: “Misinterpretations of natural phenomena, mirages, hysteria. As you said yourself, our culture has up until very recently been steeped in these tales, and people will more readily fall back on the familiar explanation than use reason, especially if reason and education has been denied to them for so long.”

Combeferre sits back in his chair, his expression thoughtful. Should he admit to his own experiences with the supernatural? For the demon, whom Combeferre has by now deduced to be an omen of imminent catastrophe, is still haunting him. He has glimpsed its ragged wings in the streets of Paris shortly before a fire, seen its long-limbed form standing on the ice of the Seine days before the surface broke, causing dozens to drown. And he has seen the red glow of its eyes as it had been gazing down on his beloved, now cold and dead in her grave. 

“What,” he starts, cautiously, “if I told you that I myself had seen such a thing? Had laid eyes on a supernatural creature that warns of imminent death?”

Enjolras cocks his head slightly, silently looking at Combeferre with an expression somewhere between curiosity and grave seriousness. Then, the smile returns once more, and Combeferre knows that while Enjolras does not believe in the demon, he does believe in Combeferre: “I would ask you to warn me if you ever saw him standing next to me, brother.”

–

On the day of General Larmarque's death, Combeferre sees the creature standing in the street outside the Corinthe. Its great, moth-like and ragged wings are unfurled, spanning almost the whole width of the street, and for the first time since he started seeing it as a child, the creature's glowing eyes are fixed on him.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Les Miserables Fantasy Week.
> 
> The creature is based on the mothman legends, mixed with my own love for legends about death omens.


End file.
